Good riddance: Halo 4 creators threaten permabans for sexist comments

"Tits or GTFO?" After you, sir.

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Halo 4 players who make sexist or discriminatory comments while playing the game on Xbox Live will receive a lifetime ban as punishment, according to an interview with the game's creators on Gamespot. While discrimination has always been frowned upon and punishable by temporary or permanent bans from the service, the creators behind Halo 4 seem determined to squelch this kind of harassment with a zero-tolerance policy.

"This is behavior that is offensive and completely unacceptable. I'd like to think most of our Xbox Live players don't support this kind of behavior," said Bonnie Ross, the head of Halo 4 developer 343 Industries, in her interview with Gamespot. Kiki Wolfkill, executive producer of Halo 4, added that a "broadcast mechanism" like Xbox Live can be a dangerous gift to adolescents, especially in the seeming vacuum of supervision that is a multiplayer game or lobby.

The Xbox Live Code of Conduct generally condemns harassment between players, either in speech or the content they create. But sexism is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the text. "Racial, ethnic, and religious slurs," are forbidden, as is "content of a sexual nature" and "hate speech," but sexism—attacks based on gender—are not explicitly mentioned.

That's not to say such attacks haven't been punished in the past on Xbox Live. Not only are players able to report each other for these offenses, but the service is also monitored by "enforcers" who will sit in on games in progress and watch for trouble. Enforcers also review logs for problems and then confront offending players with the evidence of their misdeeds. But the increased, public focus on preventing sexist harassment by two of the women behind Halo 4 is a promising step, and one we feel is completely necessary.

Sexism is a well-established issue within the gaming community—particularly in online games. But even as it's been widely acknowledged and condemned, it persists. Plenty of gamers continue to express troglodytic sentiments against women while playing, seemingly without the slightest inkling of how glaringly offensive they are. To cite just one example, in February, a male pro gamer made headlines by repeatedly sexually harassing a female teammate of his on a live video stream during an event, trying to guess her bra size and voicing a desire to spy on her in the women's bathroom.

At this point, this kind of talk is part of a script trotted out by sexist gamers the instant a woman appears, particularly in a voice-chat medium like Xbox Live (some more choice topics: kitchens, sandwiches, pics). When I play online, I often choose to stay muted rather than let fellow players hear my voice. Hearing a woman's voice doesn't always, or even often, draw attention in online games. But I decided a long time ago I'd rather not risk even the small possibility that my speaking up would draw out the same predictable, sexist, vitriolic saws. I decided the only way to win was not to play. Or to play, but not to talk.

Playing silently online is hands down less fun than when I can speak up, as when I'm playing with friends. But playing on mute is still better than taking the chance that I'm opening myself up to a roomful of players for whom a woman's voice is a trigger to spout off the same repulsive, sexist garbage lines I've already heard ten thousand times. This kind of harassment isn't only obnoxious, it's distracting. If the offensive stuff doesn't turn into a pile-on, it tends to generate defensive rants from all sides on free speech, white-knighting, and relative skill levels at hand. I just want to play my game.

The threat of a lifetime ban on an account won't stop the most persistent of trolls, especially since the policy will be impossible to enforce perfectly. But in a community where sexism is still, for too many people, the default response to a woman in the room, a harsh punishment will hopefully serve as the right wake-up call.

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Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston